He's Dead, Ranneechan
by Katty008
Summary: After Haibara gives up on finding an antidote with what little information she has, Conan becomes depressed. And Ran is determined to find out why. RanConan. Ya-huh.


**Disclaimer: Don't own Detective Conan**

**This here came about because I was listening to the Hot Fuzz soundtrack. And the soundtrack has clips of dialogue in it at the beginning and ends of some songs. And one of those is, "Murder murder murder. Change the fucking record!" And I imagined Heiji saying that. And I decided that a Detective Conan AMV with the dialogue from a Hot Fuzz trailer would be great. But I was having technical difficulties and I couldn't do it myself. But Araine has done a couple absolutely brilliant trailer AMVs. So I wrote this fic for her in exchange. I hope you like it, Araine!

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Ran was worried about Conan. For a week now he had been depressed, barely talking, and for the first time ever declined the opportunity to go to a crime scene. If the first two weren't dead giveaways, then the third certainly was.

She set dinner on the table and looked around. There was no one in the room with her. Her father was in his office, probably in a drunken stupor. Conan was probably in his room, as he had spent most of his time there lately. She untied her apron and hung it on the hook on the wall, then walked softly down the hallway. When she reached the door, she eased it open as quietly as she could. For the entirety of the week he had always looked like he had just sat down on his bed and picked up a book, flipping it open to a random page. This time she wanted to catch him at whatever he had been doing before she entered the room.

Conan was sitting in a corner, staring at the wall, and holding something in his hands. She saw the flash of something black, and realized that they were his glasses. She tip-toed into the room, kneeled behind him, and pulled him into her lap.

"Ran-neechan!" he squawked. "What're you-"

"Shhh," she assured, pulling the glasses from his hands and setting them on the floor. "It's okay. You can cry."

She hadn't been expecting any reaction to that, Conan being who he was, but she went with the flow when there was one. Conan's eyes started to water up, and then suddenly he was crying into her shirt. She had never seen him cry before, so it was almost a relief. She hugged him close and rocked gently back and forth.

After a little of this she asked gently, "Conan-kun, what's wrong?"

Conan's tears seemed to have abated slightly, though his eyes were still filled with them, and he wiped his face on his sleeve. Ran realized once again how much he looked like Shinichi without his glasses. "Shinichi-niichan…" he said, voice unsteady. "Shinichi-niichan's dead."

Ran smiled widely. "Don't be silly Conan-kun!" she assured him. If that's all it was, then he was depressed over nothing. "Where did you hear that? Shinichi's just on a really long case. He'll be back."

Conan shook his head emphatically. "No. No. No, he's dead."

Ran would've glared at him if he hadn't looked so sad and convinced. "Who's been telling you that? Who's been telling you lies?"

Conan looked away. It seemed he wasn't going to tell her. Then he looked back, with those wide eyes so full of fear and sadness. They seemed older to Ran than their seven years.

And then he leaned up and he kissed her.

It was very gentle, and Ran could barely feel it. But a kiss was a kiss was a kiss. And this was a seven-year-old kissing her. "Conan-kun…" was all she managed to get out.

"And now Shinichi-niichan can rest in peace," Conan said, smiling slightly but clearly about to start crying again.

It all hit Ran in a whirlwind. Conan-kun looked like Shinichi. Shinichi was dead. Conan-kun kissing her let Shinichi rest in peace. That theory, eons ago that she'd told to him in the restaurant, that Shinichi had gotten in trouble and Agasa had created a drug to make him shrink. Shinichi had gotten a funny look on his face then, and she hadn't been able to decipher it at the time.

Now she could. It was his beloved Truth. His beloved, truly awful Truth.

"Shinichi!" she exclaimed, hugging him so tight she was sure he couldn't breathe. "Shinichi, why didn't you tell me? Why? I've been missing you so much, and you've been right here the whole time!"

She realized she'd done the wrong thing when Conan started crying again. She let loose her arms a little and looked at him. "Shinichi, what's wrong?"

"Stop calling me that!" he shouted at her, his face angry and his temper lost. Ran shut up immediately, wondering what had prompted that. "I'm not Shinichi! I'm Conan! Shinichi is dead! He's gone! There's no body, but he's dead and gone!"

His head dropped to look at the ground, not her. "This has all gone so wrong. Everything's just so fucked up," he said quietly, almost so much so that Ran couldn't hear him.

Ran didn't chastise him for the swearing, as she would have before. Instead she pulled him close. "So what if it is?" she asked. "I don't know what's going on, so I don't know what's gone wrong. But Shinichi isn't dead. You're Shinichi, aren't you? And you're not dead. So Shinichi's not dead."

Conan opened his mouth to protest again, but Ran shut him off with a kiss. When she pulled back his eyes were wide with shock. Clearly he had been expecting his kiss to be met with anger, not another one. "I love you," she said. "I love you Shinichi. And I'll wait for you. I'll wait for you for as long as you need me to. So keep working hard to fix it, okay?"

"Ai's given up," Conan said. Ran decided not to question the mention of the girl staying with Agasa, instead choosing to let him go on. "She says she can't make the antidote with what she has. She'd need the entire formula, and even then it would take a long time. And I can't get it for her. I've been trying, I swear, but I can't find it. I can't fight them, not like this. And I need to fight them to stop being like this. It's just a never ending circle, and I'll never get anywhere."

Ran hugged him close and rocked slightly. "Don't worry. We'll deal with this in the morning. Right now dinner's ready, okay?" She leaned over and kissed him a third time.

Kogorou quickly left the doorway and made a beeline for the dinner table. He'd poked his head in right when they were kissing, and that was disturbing. He wasn't going to turn his own daughter in for pedophilia (did that even count if they were both minors?), but there was going to be some serious explaining going on later.

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**Reviews, as always, are highly appreciated.**


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